The Creation of a Mapuche Sorcerer: Sexual Ambivalence, the Commodification of Knowledge, and the Coveting of Wealth

Abstract

I analyze Jorge's case as paradigmatic of Mapuche sorcery in Chile because he epitomizes many of the contradictory ways in which Mapuche perceive and categorize people they believe embody evil and threaten sociality. Capitalist consumption and individual success are both desired by Mapuche and criticized as antithetical to spirituality, morality, and community values. Mapuche see sorcerers as people who (a) draw on older Mapuche notions of ambivalent shamanic powers rather than on Catholic moralities; (b) challenge local sociopolitical hierarchies and communal egalitarian ideals; (c) accumulate wealth and prestige through engagement with modern beliefs and practices, self-proclaimed political and religious roles, capitalism, and foreign influences; (d) are excessively poor or wealthy; (e) challenge dominant Chilean gender norms and are suspected of being sexually "deviant"; (f) challenge Mapuche norms of sociality through aggression, individualism, and amorality; and (g) commodify indigenous knowledge for their own benefit rather than that of the community. I show that sorcery engenders change because it is linked to fractures that develop within the community when people take different positions in relation to modernization, capitalism, and foreign influence. I show how the "traditionalizing" of Mapuche sorcery operates simultaneously with its modernization and how both were played out in Machi Jorge's life and practice.